One Reason
by Maybe the Moon
Summary: Crowley is a punk. Aziraphale is vaguely tolerant. Mild slash.


As an angel Aziraphale moved through time, drifting through history like a feather on the surface of water. When the centuries passed into one another so did he, adapting to each era as seamlessly as if he were actually born into it. Language and custom were as effortless to him as a smile.

Fashion, on the other hand, was another matter.

It was all so easy, back in the beginning. Before all the business with the apple, and modesty set in. No more strolling around in all that God gave you, that was unseemly, and the proper thing to do was to drape your body in itchy cloth that liked to gather in uncomfortable places.

It was a bit better with the Greeks, who knew how to make a proper toga. If you couldn't be naked, being draped in linen was the next best thing, and Aziraphale clung to the trend until the bitter end, when waistcoats and stockings were invented.

Aziraphale loathed stockings.

He thought of blaming the whole thing on Crowley, but he knew that wasn't fair. He'd only been following orders after all. And an angel was nothing if not fair about things.

If only the infernal demon didn't look like he actually enjoyed fashion. Yet he did, strutting around the whole of God's Earth looking as if he'd just stumbled from the pages of a catalogue for a nice men's shop. He liked to align himself with the higher classes, so for a time in the 13th century Crowley went round with sleeves that trailed behind him in the dust, only they were never, ever dirty.

Aziraphale was appalled.

The angel spent a few hundred years being appalled, or disapproving, or some derivative thereof. He was quite happy when Crowley disappeared during the 19th Century and the angel was spared a parade of very elaborate waistcoats and impeccably-pressed cravats.

By the time the 20th century turned up, Aziraphale had finally achieved some level of comfort. Three-piece suits (once Aziraphale became fed up with stockings, and had lent a divine hand to the invention of trousers) and a nice tie if he were to be out in public. He liked the neat, respectable nature he presented, and the addition having a bowler to tip at the ladies was he thought a nice touch.

Unfortunately, it being the 20th Century meant that Crowley was awake once again, and when he turned up for lunch one afternoon all in black, with horns sprouting from his head – in public, of all things – Aziraphale felt the familiar pangs of consternation cause his eyes to narrow, and his mouth to form a tsk sound.

"What in Heaven's name are you wearing?" he asked, as Crowley sat down. They were in a little pub near the Thames, and people were already staring at them.

Crowley twitched. "What? S'just clothes."

"Those," said Aziraphale, with a sniff, "are not clothes. How many defenseless animals died for that jacket, my dear?"

"I don't know. Eleven?" Crowley signaled for a waiter.

Aziraphale scowled. "Really," he said, voice heavy with thousands of years' worth of scorn. "You're making a spectacle, and I highly doubt that your people would want you to-"

He paused, and squinted at Crowley's head.

"Is that your hair?"

Crowley actually looked pleased. "Brilliant, isn't it? Took ages to get just right. Don't know how normal humans do it, they don't have the means to make it point just so, and- What?"

The angel looked as if he were going to be ill.

"You're slouching."

"Look, angel." Crowley leaned forward, and the safety pins and such dangling from his sleeves jingled and twinkled in the pale pub light. "If you're just going to sit there and critique my fashion sense, then I'll just be going."

Aziraphale blanched. "I just-"

"We're supposed to blend in," insisted Crowley. "You have your crowd and I have mine, and this" - he tugged at his t-shirt, ripped at the collar - "is what my crowd happens to be wearing, these days."

After a moment, Aziraphale sighed and shook his head.

"Better you than me, I suppose," he said, as he sipped his tea. "I'd almost rather wear stockings."

Crowley grinned.

"Almost."

--

It was 1976, and unto the people was born in the city of London a new movement, a musical revolution, a new era in riots, profanity in public, and long-term hearing loss.

Punk involved finding the least talented people on the planet, putting a guitar in their hands and teaching them to spit and say a few obscene words before sending them out to change the world.

And change it they did.

Pointy hair and piercings began appearing on the streets of London, and an Olympian effort of mass-scowling overtook the youth of the nation. The number of petty thefts and assaults skyrocketed. Parents watched in horror as their children learnt to curse, to glare, to scream. A thousand immature voices rose in one glorious chant against the Establishment: Fuck you.

Crowley hoped the irony of the movement was not lost on the Powers Above. He was subtle in his artistry, but not that subtle. He made certain that the echoes of a long-passed Great War could be heard in between each angry note of this new kind of music (though he used the term as loosely as possible).

Below got it straight away, and Crowley had got an Award of Merit for it.

Yet despite having assisted in the inception of punk, Crowley actually couldn't listen to the actual product. He would never admit it to anyone – lest of all Aziraphale – but he preferred his music to have a melody, and a minimal amount of screaming. To Crowley, punk was noise, and while it pleased his superiors and spawned anarchy in the U.K., it really just gave him a headache.

He made up for his lack of enthusiasm in the music by harboring a deep appreciation for the packaging. The leather, the metal, the excuse to let his hair form the peaks and horns it normally fought valiantly for every morning - it all pleased him in a way that the cloaks and cravats of the past had never quite managed to. There wasn't much appeal to a feathered chapeau when one is a demon, and hell-bent on not looking like a idiot.

Punk, however, looked wicked, and that suited Crowley just fine.

Especially when he saw the look on Aziraphale's face. The angel had always held his taste for fashion in contempt, but this was obviously too much.

As they exited the pub and stepped out onto the street, Crowley took a cigarette from his pocket and tucked it between his lips. The end smouldered without ever having touched a flame.

Aziraphale grunted.

"This again?" he murmured.

"It's been a couple of centuries." Crowley flicked the ash into a hedge, singeing a few leaves. "I expect I'm overdue."

They walked through the city, midway between Crowley's flat and Aziraphale's bookshop. It was a good night for it, not too cold and only slightly damp. Crowley's boots made no sound against the pavement. Beside him, the angel took himself lightly.

"I take it this is one of your projects, then," said Aziraphale. He gestured to Crowley's attire. "I've been hearing about it."

"Have you?"

"Don't be too eager. You've the whole of the establishment up in arms over this. They're going on and on about the downfall of society and that sort of thing."

Crowley preened. "Thank you."

"Never-mind," sighed Aziraphale.

"Look," said Crowley, chucking the burning remains of the cheroot into the street. Aziraphale toed it out. "I thought we had an Arrangement. You're interfering, angel."

"I'm not. I'm simply... providing commentary."

"Biased commentary," Crowley muttered.

"Can't help that, my dear boy. I was created for it." Aziraphale offered a smile. "Come on, now. Since when have I approved of anything you've done?"

Crowley leveled a glare. "The Mesopotamians and their wine."

"I thought that was ours."

"No," said Crowley, somewhat smugly. "I'm pretty sure that was ours." He sniffed. "And frankly, everything since has been a poor imitation. Nothing replaces the classics."

Aziraphale exhaled. "I suppose. Though I was really quite fond of Essenczian."

"Well, if it weren't for you and Bordeaux we'd all be up the proverbial creek."

"True." Aziraphale blushed. "Well, someone had to do something-"

They stopped, and Crowley looked up. They were standing outside of a nightclub. Crashing and shrieking could be heard from within, and grouchy-looking youths with dangerous expressions lurked in the doorway; Crowley suddenly felt rather uncomfortable. It was all a little too familiar for his liking.

"Er," he croaked, and he put a hand on Aziraphale's shoulder to steer him back the way they'd come, but before they could leave one of the punks sauntered up, hands in the pockets of a battered jacket, upon which someone had painted "GOD SHAVE THE QUEEN" in red letters.

"Bloody poufs," he drawled, if it could be called a drawl. It was more like drool, and Crowley felt himself shudder as he listened to each word drip from the punk's mouth and splash at his feet, mixed with the rain.

"No, not at all," replied Crowley, carefully. He actually had no idea what the youth had said, but thought it best to disagree, and smile as much as demonically possible.

The punk grimaced. "Y'are," he said. Behind him, his comrades - a boy with blue hair and a girl with a chain from her ear to her nose - postponed their existential boredom long enough to nod in agreement.

"Erk," said Crowley.

As a demon, he could have simply banished the little bastard to Somewhere Dreadful, but he'd have a hard time explaining that to the folks down Below. They got twitchy when you started making people vanish left and right. It resulted in a lot of paperwork, and shifty glares from the fellows Above.

He managed a slithery little grin. "We were just leaving," he said.

The punk grunted. He took another step, and for a moment Crowley thought that a little paperwork was a lot better than having his face rearranged by some idiotic kid, and he was about to snap his fingers and make it Happen when his view was obscured by the tweed-encased form of Aziraphale.

"You don't want to do that," said the angel, calmly.

"Wah?" the punk mumbled. "Feckoff."

Aziraphale didn't budge. "You don't want to do that," he repeated, his bright eyes flickering with something ancient, something secret.

Crowley knew well enough to realise that Aziraphale was trying to Influence the boy, make him see the Error of His Ways, and perhaps Send Him Home to Mother. For a relative pain in the arse, Aziraphale was a very good angel, and very good at what he did.

Unfortunately, it didn't seem to be good enough.

Then things started to happen, and time slowed down, and it all happened like items on a list being read off very carefully.

The punk lunged, his arm a blur of motion.

Crowley shouted.

Aziraphale sighed.

And that was that.

--

The city of London offers many places of solace for an angel, but Crowley didn't find Aziraphale in any of them. Where he did find him was leaning against a wall in an alley, soaked through with the rain that fell steadily around him, in sheets.

Crowley rolled his eyes.

"Don't you think you're being just a little melodramatic, angel?" he said.

Aziraphale didn't look up, but the rain ceased to fall.

Crowley leaned against the wall beside him in what he hoped was a nonchalant manner. Somewhere along the way his anarchistic gear had vanished, leaving him subdued and relatively non-threatening. The less he antagonised the angel right now, he figured, the better.

After a few moments of silence, and uncomfortable shuffling and fidgeting by Crowley, Aziraphale finally emitted a long, heavy sigh. It was the sort of sigh one would expect of one who expects his very immortal soul to exit his body, to leave him behind, in the space of just one breath.

Crowley resisted the urge to remind him that angels don't breathe.

Finally, Aziraphale spoke.

"How did you Fall, Crowley?"

Well. This was not expected.

"Er."

Aziraphale fluttered, and Crowley was suddenly aware of wings. "I mean, really, I don't remember it. That dreadful business with Lucifer, that awful row."

Crowley frowned. "Even with all the shouting and the invention of all those curse words?"

"No. I did what any self-respecting angel would do."

"Which was?"

"Stuck my fingers in my ears and hummed."

"Ah." Crowley was grateful for his sunglasses. They hid the tremendous roll of his eyes.

Aziraphale nodded. "So, I expect that I missed everything. Sort of heard about it later. Everyone was talking about it, and He brooded about it for ages." He stared at the ground, tapping random stones with the toe of his show. "So... how was it?"

Crowley decided to stall. "How was what?"

"Your Fall." Aziraphale was getting a bit testy. "What, er, happened?"

"Er, well..." Crowley hesitated, not because he didn't want to tell Aziraphale, but because Crowley couldn't tell him what he knew he wanted to hear. The angel wanted to hear about fire and brimstone and lightning across a burning sky. He wanted to hear about the descent of the Morning Star, or something equally poetic. He did not want to hear how Crowley fell.

Because Crowley hadn't Fallen.

He'd tripped. Literally.

After the whole debate with God went sour, Crowley - who initially thought Lucifer had a point about the equality thing, and why couldn't a most perfect angel be on par with the Creator, though perhaps it had sounded a lot better when they'd all been quite drunk - decided that the best course of action would be to just slip away, quietly, in the hopes that he'd go unnoticed.

Unfortunately, Crowley had not been a very graceful sort of angel. The next thing he knew he was Somewhere Else, and that was really rather unfair, he thought.

Not to mention embarrassing.

Crowley stood up straight. "You're not going to Fall, angel," he said, sternly, and before Aziraphale could protest he added, "And don't argue with me. If you were going to Fall you would have by now. He... doesn't mess around." Crowley shot a withering look at the clouds overhead.

"But..." Aziraphale frowned. "Crowley, I hurt someone! Intentionally!"

"And why did you do that?" asked Crowley. "Were you, perhaps, protecting an innocent person from harm?"

Aziraphale lifted an eyebrow. "I only think it counts if who I'm protecting is actually innocent," he said. "And a person."

"I think it counts regardless. And besides, nobody was hurt."

"I saw him fall, Crowley-"

"Nobody was permanently hurt, Aziraphale."

"I- Oh?" Aziraphale blinked. "Oh. Oh."

Never trust a demon, someone once said. He has a hundred motives for anything he does. Ninety-nine of them, at least, are malevolent.

This was true of Crowley, except that occasionally he only had one reason to do something, if it was important enough.

Aziraphale was blinking at him owlishly. "I don't know what to say-"

"Thanks."

"Well, yes, there's that-"

"No, angel, I'm saying it to you." Crowley felt slightly ill. "Thanks, you know, for... Well, I could have handled it."

"Oh," said Aziraphale, "but you would have handled it, and that wouldn't have been very nice, and he was awfully young..."

"Angel, you nearly-" Crowley caught himself. Best if Aziraphale didn't know exactly what he'd done to the kid. "Alright, sure. So, thank you for averting what could have been a fiery cataclysm of Hell's wrath." He pulled his coat a bit tighter. "Now, can we go somewhere dry, preferably where they serve alcohol in the big glasses?"

Aziraphale nodded, but before Crowley could step away he leaned up and placed a small kiss on his lips. Crowley froze, until the angel stepped back, a secret little smile on his face.

"What-" Crowley began, but Aziraphale shook his head.

"Ineffable," he said, merrily, and he took Crowley's arm to lead him home.


End file.
